The men's 100 metre breaststroke event at the 2024 Summer Olympics was held from 27 to 28 July 2024 at Paris La Défense Arena, which was converted to a swimming pool for the swimming events.[1] Since an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of two lengths of the pool.
In the heats, Israel's Ron Polonsky lowered his country's national record to 1:00.00. In the semifinals Germany's Melvin Imoudu and Italy's Ludovico Viberti tied for the eighth fastest time, meaning they competed in a swim-off to determine who would progress to the final. Imoudu won the swim-off and so qualified for the final.
In the final, Haiyang led at halfway, but in what SwimSwam called a "frantic frenzy to the wall" Martinenghi finished first with a time of 59.03, 0.02 seconds ahead of Peaty and Fink who tied for silver with 59.05. Peaty's silver made him the first swimmer to win three Olympic medals in the event. A day after the race he tested positive for COVID-19, and shortly after that he stepped back from swimming, saying "it’s just hurt too much this time".
Both SwimSwam and Swimming World predicted Haiyang would win gold and Peaty would take second. SwimSwam predicted Fink would take third, while Swimming World predicted it would be Martinenghi.[2][4]
Each National Olympic Committee (NOC) was permitted to enter a maximum of two qualified athletes in each individual event, but only if both of them had attained the Olympic Qualifying Time (OQT).[5] For this event, the OQT was 59.49 seconds. World Aquatics then considered athletes qualifying through universality; NOCs were given one event entry for each gender, which could be used by any athlete regardless of qualification time, providing the spaces had not already been taken by athletes from that nation who had achieved the OQT.[5][6] Finally, the rest of the spaces were filled by athletes who had met the Olympic Consideration Time (OCT), which was 59.79 for this event.[5] In total, 21 athletes qualified through achieving the OQT, 15 athletes qualified through universality places and two athletes qualified through achieving the OCT.[6]
Five heats took place on 27 July 2024, starting at 11:00.[a][7] The swimmers with the best 16 times in the heats advanced to the semifinals.[8]DutchmanCaspar Corbeau won the third heat to qualify with the fastest time of 59.04. Peaty qualified second with 59.18, while Martinenghi, Kamminga, Haiyang and Fink also qualified.[9]Israel's Ron Polonsky qualified for the semifinal with a new national record of 1:00.00, which beat his previous national record of 1:00.07.[10]
Two semifinals took place on 27 July, starting at 21:12.[11] The swimmers with the best eight times in the semifinals advanced to the final.[12] Peaty won the first semifinal to qualify for the final with the fastest time of 58.86, while Haiyang won the second semifinal to qualify with the second fastest time of 58.93. Kamminga, Fink, Corbeau, Martinenghi and Lucas Metzerath of Germany also qualified. Germany's Melvin Imoudu and Italy's Ludovico Viberti tied for the eighth fastest time as they both swam 59.38, which meant they raced in a swim-off to determine who reached the final.[13]
The final took place at 21:44 on 28 July.[16] Haiyang led at the halfway (50 metre) mark,[17] followed by Peaty and then Martinenghi.[18] Over the rest of the race, Martinenghi moved up to first to win the gold with 59.03.[19] Fink, who was fifth at the 50 metre mark,[19] moved up to second and tied with Peaty for the silver medal, both clocking 59.05.[20] Imoudu finished fourth with 59.11, while Haiyang dropped to seventh by the end of the race.[19][21]SwimSwam called the finish of the race a "frantic frenzy to the wall", since the to six swimmers finished within 0.29 seconds.[22]
Peaty's silver made him the first swimmer to win three Olympic medals in the event,[22][23] while it was Martinenghi's second medal in the event.[24] In his post race interview, Martinenghi said winning the gold was "probably the best feeling of [his] life".[25] In Peaty's post race interview, he cried and said "I’m not crying because I’ve come second. I’m crying because it took so much to get here."[26][27] A day after the race he tested positive for COVID-19,[28][29] and shortly after that he stepped back from swimming, saying "it’s just hurt too much this time".[30]
The winning time of 59.03 was almost two seconds slower than the winning time at the previous Olympics, which induced discussion over whether the Paris Olympic pool was "slow".[19][31] The time was slower than the winning time in the event at every Olympics since 2004.[24]
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